Chapter VIII: Part IV: 'Bottomless perdition.'--Milton (5)

The earliest and standard specimen of Roman coinage was the _as_, subdivided almost indefinitely, and originally weighing a pound. This ponderous coin subserved a purpose which our penny does to-day. It had upon the obverse the double-headed Janus, and upon the reverse the keel of a ship, rudely done, but answering the requirements of the light, juvenile gambling known as pitching coppers. _Capita aut navem_, 'Heads or the ship,' the Roman boys cried, as Young America cries now, 'Heads or tails.' It is an eminently conservative custom, and Master Freddy, as he tosses his new bronze cent, may summarily answer paternal reproof by showing that Master Tullius, two thousand years ago, pitched the _as_ his father coined, and, for aught we know, grew to be a wise emperor and a great man.

Judea is represented upon several coins of the time of Titus and Vespasian by the figure of a woman with flowing hair and bared breasts, seated upon the ground in a posture of sorrow and captivity, above her the wide-spreading branches of the palm, and behind her a stalwart Roman soldier in mail, leaning upon his spear. Thus exactly did the Roman engraver follow out upon these coins the language of the Scriptures. The Psalmist describes this posture in the lamentations of the Jews over their captivity. 'By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept.' Still more remarkable is it that the prophet, in a passage foretelling this identical captivity, likens Judea to a woman sitting upon the ground wrapped in sorrow.

It is not often that coins have been used as vehicles of wit or for plays upon words, but there are examples upon record. Some of the German coins represent in the legends the years in which they were minted. A coin of Gustavus Adolphus also is an excellent illustration of this practice. The legend is: 'ChrIstVs DVX ergo trIVMphVs.' Take the capitalized letters or numerals from the words, and arrange them in their proper order, and you have 1627, the year in which the coin was struck. Upon a coin of Trio Lucretius, a member of the _Lucretia gens_, who would have remained unknown to this day but for his coin, a case of punning by means of types occurs. The obverse has the head of Apollo; the reverse, the crescent moon and seven stars, or rather _triones_--the constellation of the Ursa Major. The sun and moon refer to the family name, while the _triones_ are an allusion to the surname. Pope Urban VIII., with execrable taste and questionable wit, upon repairing certain roads, struck a medal with the legend: _Beati qui custodiunt meas vias_, 'Blessed are they who keep my ways.' The 'speaking types' of the ancient Grecian coins are very curious. The coinage of Rhodes has a rose for a type, which flower bears the same name as the island. The coins of Side have a pomegranate, in Greek, _side_ ([Greek: sidê]); Melos, the apple, in Greek, _melon_ ([Greek: mêlon]); Ancona, in Italy, the elbow, in Greek, _ancon_ ([Greek: agkon]); Cardia, the heart, in Greek, _cardia_ [Greek: kardia].

The coins of Constantine the Great, 306 A.D., will always remain of peculiar interest, as connected with the early history of Christianity. Constantine, after forcing his brother-in-law, Licinius, from his Eastern dominions, built Constantinople, and made Christianity the state religion. The principal emblem upon his coins is the Labarum, or sacred banner, bearing the monogram of Christ--the letters [Greek: Ch] and [Greek: R]--being the initials of [Greek: CHRISTOU], the angles of which are occupied by the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega, in allusion to Christ's declaration in Revelation. A rarer type of Constantine's coins has the monogram, and the legend, _In hoc signo vinces_. The _signum_ was the vision of a beautiful cross in the heavens, which was presented to the view of Constantine, near Milan, during his march against Maxentius. To this cross he attributed both his victory and conversion. These Christian emblems remained upon the coins of his successors until the reign of Julian the Apostate, who removed them and substituted pagan emblems. Nor do they again appear until the accession of Michael Rhangabe (811-813), when the bust and sometimes the full length of Christ is on the obverse, with the _nimbus_, and the legend, _Jesus Christus nica(tor) rex regnantium_. Upon the reverse, the emperor, with a singular degree of boldness, is seated by the side of the Virgin, the two holding aloft the banner of the cross.

We come to more modern coins. England and Ireland were in continual trouble about the standard of coinage. On the accession of Mary, she declared the intention of restoring the old standard of silver coinage, viz., 11 oz. 2 dwt. fine, to 18 dwt. alloy; but, instead of that, the new coinage was a pennyweight lower than that of Edward. Nor did it mend matters that her handsome face and Philip's were on the obverse. The wits of the day had many a joke over it; and Butler's sarcastic pen could not omit the opportunity of writing:

'Still amorous, fond, and billing,
Like Philip and Mary upon a shilling.'

The first manifestation of displeasure between the mother country and the colonies was with Massachusetts, of course. The old Bay State was as impatient toward masters then as later in the Revolution against George, and still later with the slaveholders. Charles II. was displeased with the colonists for coining money, which he considered his royal prerogative, and intimated to Sir Thomas Temple that they must be punished, and the business stopped. Sir Thomas was considerable of a wag, and showed the king one of honest John Hull's shillings, on the reverse of which was the pine tree. The king asked him what sort of a tree that was. Upon which Sir Thomas replied that, of course, it was the royal oak, which had saved his majesty's life. The king smiled at the courtier's wit; but it is not reported that he allowed Hull to continue the coinage.

The proverbial misfortunes of Ireland have attended even her coinage, and her troubles in that direction commenced as early as the reign of Henry VII. He coined sixpences for Ireland worth only fourpence in England. Mary issued base shillings and groats for Ireland, and Elizabeth issued still baser ones, while she purified the coinage of England. James I. struck copper farthings of two sizes, that if they failed in England, they might be used in Ireland for pence and halfpence. Charles I. established a mint in Dublin, but, in the confusion attendant upon his death, the Irish lost it. Cromwell gave them tokens in place of coins of the realm; and James II. base silver money, made principally from brass cannon, and even this alloyed stuff was gradually diminished in size. White metal followed, then lead, and finally tin. George I. granted a patent to William Wood in 1737 for coining pence and halfpence for Ireland, but he coined them of smaller size than was stipulated in the patent. Dean Swift, with his merciless satire, drove them out of Ireland, and his majesty, having no use for them in England, sent them to his American colonies. Circulating media were scarce here at that time, and anything in the shape of coins was welcome. George II. did better for Ireland, and gave her honest coins. In 1760 the famous _voce populi_ halfpenny appeared, a company of gentlemen in Dublin having obtained permission to issue them. There was a bit of quiet revenge in this halfpenny. The head of the sovereign, though apparently done in the usual manner of the king's portrait, was in reality a portrait of the Pretender. The coins attained a considerable circulation before the trick was discovered, and then they were suppressed.

Coins have figured in sermons. Bishop Latimer, on the 8th of March, 1549, delivered the following sarcastic sermon. On a previous occasion he had spoken jestingly of the new currency of Edward VI. For this he was accused of sedition, which charge he answered thus:

'Thus they burdened me even with sedition. And wot ye what? I chanced in my last sermon to speak a merry word of a new shilling, to refresh my auditory, how I was like to put away my new shilling for an old groat. I was therein noted to speak seditiously. ... I have now gotten one more fellowe, a companion of sedition; and wot you who is my fellowe? Esay (Isaiah) the prophet. I spake but of a little prettie shilling; but he speaketh to Jerusalem after another sort, and was so bold as to meddle with their coynes. 'Thou proud, thou haughty city of Jerusalem. _Argentum tuum versum est in scoriam_;' thy silver is turned into what? into testious _scoriam_, into dross,' Ah! seditious wretch! what had he to do with the mint? Why should he not have left that matter to some masters of policy to reprove? Thy silver is dross; it is not fine; it is counterfeit; thy silver is turned; thou hadst no silver. What pertained that to Esay? Marry, he replied a piece of diversity in that policy; he threateneth God's vengeance for it.

'He went to the root of the matter, which was covetousness, which became him to reprove; or else that it tended to the hurt of poore people; for the naughtiness of the silver was the occasion of dearth of all things in the realm. He imputeth it to them as a crime. He may be called a master of sedition indeed. Was not this a seditious fellowe, to tell them this even to their faces?'

The three-farthing piece struck in Elizabeth's reign is often mentioned in the poets. Shakspeare has an allusion to it in King John. He introduces the bastard Falconbridge, ridiculing the personal appearance of his legitimate elder brother, having just before compared him to a half-faced groat:

'Because he hath an half face, like my father,
With that half face would he have all my land.'

Farther on, he says he would not have such a person (body):

'My face so thin,
That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose,
Lest men should say, Look where three farthings goes;'

alluding to the rose which was on both the obverse and reverse of the coin. Beaumont and Fletcher, in the 'Scornful Lady,' show the difference between the penny and three-farthing piece, and inform us of a knavish trick then practised, to impose upon ignorant people the lesser as the greater coin. Lovelass, speaking of Morecraft, the usurer, says: 'He had a bastard, his own toward issue, whipt and thin cropt, for washing out the rose in three farthings to make them pence.'

In England, during the reign of George III., an act was passed to amend an act of the 51st of the king, respecting the gold coin and the notes of the Bank of England. By this act the provisions of the former statute were extended to Ireland, and the notes of the bank there were placed upon the same basis as those of the Bank of England. While this act was passing the House, the following epigram appeared in the public papers:

BANK NOTES AND GUINEAS.

Bank notes, it is said, once guineas defied
To swim to a point in trade's foaming tide;
But ere they could reach the opposite brink,
Bank notes cried to gold: 'Help us, cash us, we sink!'

'That paper should sink, and guineas should swim,
May appear to some folks a ridiculous whim;
But before they condemn, let them hear this suggestion:
In pun making, gravity's out of the question.

There is a romantic incident in the early history of Massachusetts, which has been often told. Money was scarce, and in 1652 the General Court passed a law for the coinage of sixpences and shillings. Captain John Hull was appointed the mintmaster, and was to have one shilling in every twenty for his labor. All the old silver in the colony, wornout plate, battered tankards, buckles, and spoons, and especially the bullion seized by the buccaneers then sailing the Spanish Main (for all was honest that came to Hull's melting pot), was brought in for coinage, and the mintmaster rapidly grew to be the millionnaire of the colony, and suitors came from far and wide for the hand of his daughter. Among them was Samuel Sewall, who was the favorite of the plump and buxom miss. Hull, the mintmaster, roughly gave his consent: "Take her," said he, "and you will find her a heavy burden enough." The wedding day came, and the captain, tightly buttoned up with shillings and sixpences, sat in his grandfather's chair, till the ceremony was concluded. Then he ordered his servants to bring in a huge pair of scales. 'Daughter,' said the mintmaster, 'go into one side of the scales.' Mrs. Sewall obeyed, and then the mintmaster had his strongbox brought in, an immense ironbound oaken chest, which the servants were obliged to drag over the floor. Then the mintmaster unlocked the chest, and ordered the servants to fill the other side of the scales with shillings and sixpences. Plump Mrs. Sewall bore down hard upon her side of the scales, but still the servants shovelled in the bright, fresh pine-tree shillings, until Mrs. Sewall began to rise. Then the mintmaster ordered them to forbear. 'There, you Sewall,' said the magnanimous old money maker, 'take these shillings for my daughter's portion. Use her kindly, and thank Heaven for her; for it is not every wife that is worth her weight in silver.' And Master Sewell took Mistress Sewall and thirty thousand pounds (not avoirdupois, but sterling).

The liberty cap was first used as an emblem by the committee of safety organized at Philadelphia early in 1775. At a meeting on the 31st of August of that year, it was resolved by the committee that Owen Biddle provide a seal for the use of the board, about the size of a dollar, with a cap of liberty, with this motto: 'This is my right, and I will defend it.' Upon the first cent issued by the United States Mint for circulation, in 1793, the cap appears. This cap is the Phrygian cap, and all nations recognize it as the badge of liberty. When Spartacus rose at the head of his fellow slaves against their Roman masters to obtain liberty, his followers were distinguished by this cap. Though their effort was unsuccessful, the principle of liberty still exists, to be fought for until the last manacle is struck from the last slave. And mankind has recognized that early struggle for freedom by adopting the cap as one of the attributes of the goddess of freedom.

The freaks of currency are singular. The early Greeks bartered with cattle; hence we derive _pecunia_ (money) from pecus (the flock). Cowry shells have bought slaves on the African coast, and wampum answered for money with the Indian, The Carthaginians, Frederick II. at the siege of Milan, Philip I. and John the Good, kings of France, used stamped leather, the latter inserting a silver nail in the centre. St. Louis, of France, issued the black coin made of billon. The Anglo-Saxons used rings, torques, and bracelets. Homer says the Greeks carried on their traffic with bars and spikes of brass. Salt is the money of Abyssinia, and codfish in Iceland. In Adam Smith's day, the Edinburgh workmen bought bread with nails, and drank from foaming tankards paid for with spikes. Marco Polo found mulberry-bark money in China, stamped with the sovereign's seal, which it was death to counterfeit, as was the case also with the Continental currency of our own country. The first families of Virginia, now fighting for the ideas of aristocracy and labor owned by capital, are the lineal and quite recent descendants of shiploads of women exported from the crowded capitals of Europe, with little regard to character or condition, and bought at so many pounds of tobacco per head. The cannon used by James II. in his desperate struggle for the throne, were melted up and coined into the famous gun money; and the bells of Paris which tolled over the horrors of the guillotine, in the bloody days of Robespierre, met a similar useful end. Charles I., with a Vandal hand, melted up the plate of the aristocracy and the almost inestimable relics of Oxford into siege pieces. In 1641, Massachusetts enacted that wheat should be received in payment of debts; and during the French Revolution, the convention, upon the motion of Jean Bon Saint André, discussed the propriety of making wheat the standard of value.

From coins to wealth is but a step. The ancients surpassed the moderns in splendid wealth and lavish extravagance. Seneca, writing superb treatises in favor of poverty, was worth nearly five millions of dollars. Lentulus, the astrologer, made his black arts yield him over three millions. The delighted heirs of Tiberius found nearly thirty-six millions in his coffers, and in less than a year Caligula spent the whole of it. Milo's debts were Titanic, amounting to six millions. Cæsar had a list of creditors whose name was legion, before he obtained any public office; but he was soon enabled to present Curio with six hundred thousand dollars, Lucius Paulus with four hundred thousand, and Servilia, the mother of Brutus, with a trifle of a pearl worth over thirty thousand. Mark Antony's house was sold to Messala for over half a million, and Scaurus's villa was burned at a loss of over twelve millions. Otho spent over fourteen millions in finishing the wing of a palace commenced by Nero. One of Caligula's dinners cost a million dollars; and one of Heliogabalus's breakfasts, twenty-seven thousand dollars, Oesopus, the actor, swallowed a pearl worth eleven thousand dollars, and Apicius, the gourmand, ate over seventy-seven millions during his worthless life, and then committed suicide, because he was reduced one day to only a hundred thousand dollars in his purse.

I hold in my hand a huge iron token which Ptolemy struck in commemoration of his conquest of Egypt, and by its side the new two-cent piece of the United States, fresh and sparkling from the Mint at Philadelphia. The one antiquated, rude, corroded, and begrimed in its long conflict with time, and the other bright and vivid, its field and exergue unmarred, its emblems and legends clear and sharp. The coin of Ptolemy has a history. The obverse gives us undoubtedly the head of Jupiter, the cloud bearer, rugged, massive, stern, iron featured, taurine neck, hair in great serpentine coils and shocks; the reverse, a magnificent spread eagle, and the inscription in Greek, _Basileus Ptolemaion_. Ptolemy, flushed with the victory he had won for Alexander, issued it over two thousand years ago. After subserving the purposes of Athenian barter, some swarthy Egyptian obtained it; but our friend the Egyptian, in time, was gathered to his fathers. He was embalmed, and slept in the shadow of the Pyramid, where his royal predecessors were sleeping, and by the side of the eternal Sphynx, whose riddle he could not read in life. Perhaps death unsealed the mystery of those stony lips to him. The token was placed in the mummy case upon the Egyptian's lips, perhaps as Charon's toll. But, in that event, evidently our friend the Egyptian never crossed over the black river of Death, but is still wandering--a miserable shade--along its banks, seeking rest, and finding none. Token and Egyptian remained in their tomb while Thebes flourished and decayed, Tyre and Sidon crumbled into ruins, Rome, mistress of the world, cowered beneath the scourge of Goth and Vandal and Hun, and the earth was eclipsed in the night of the ages. Still the Pyramids towered toward heaven, the Sphynx gazed on with calm, earnest eyes, Memnon made music of welcome to the sun, and our token sealed the shrivelled silent lips of the Egyptian. The world emerged from its night. Dante and Aquinas, Copernicus and Galileo, Luther and Melanchthon, Gutenberg and Faust, Kant and Schlegel, Bacon, Leibnitz and Newton, Watt and Morse, tore away the seals before our token saw the light. It came forth into a new world by the hand of a missionary, preaching a religion founded three hundred years after it closed the lips of the Egyptian. The heathen god was upon its field, but the Christian religion had set aside the old mythology of which it was a representative. I turn from this relic of the past to the coin of the present, and upon the latter I find the acknowledgment of that religion, and of dependence upon its immutable Author: 'In God we trust;' and from this legend I augur deliverance from the troubles that beset us, the vindication of outraged laws, the Union of dissevered fragments, the return of peace to our distracted land, the integrity of the Republic.

MIRACLES.

People refuse to believe in miracles because they esteem, them incredible: how, then, do they believe in existence--in the being of anything? Is it credible--to human reason, I mean--that anything should be without a cause? Nothing, so far as we can judge, _ever comes to_ be without an efficient cause--something that goes before, with power to bring that which comes after.

But existence is an indisputable fact: we must believe it, whether we can or not.

Oh yes, one may say, but there is an infinite Being from all eternity, and He has produced all other forms of existence.

Very well; but if that be so, do not let us trouble ourselves about what are called miracles. They come very easily after the creation of light--the creation of sun and moon and stars; or even of nebulous matter, so constituted that by its revolution in space it may generate these wondrous orbs.

But there is a difficulty, it seems, about laws--natural laws: we are not to suppose that they will ever he violated. But there is another law above all these; all at least of the inanimate world, _i.e._, that the forces of brute matter are subject to the will, or whatever is analogous to will, in any living creatures. The law of gravitation is one of the most universally operative; but every bird rising upon its wings, every dog in its leaps, yea, the grasshopper springing from the earth, sets this law at defiance. Almost every common law of matter is set aside by the ingenuity of man, as put forth by that most truly spiritual faculty, the will.

Are we then to suppose that the Almighty has so tied his power to agencies purely material that He can never perform an act except under their regulation? This would leave Him with no discretional power whatever--with no such liberty even as that which He has bestowed upon every creature that has will, or anything like it. Is this the idea of a God infinite in power, as in wisdom and goodness? Are we to think that the Almighty has just for once set a universe in motion, and forever withdrawn Himself from all meddling with its affairs? He permits us to control the electric power: but is never permitted to direct a thunderbolt upon the guilty, or to turn one aside from any path it might incline to pursue!

Miracles! Is it then so much more wonderful that water should be turned into wine, than that a little water and a little earth, under the rays of the sun, should be turned into the beautiful flowers and luscious fruits of our gardens and orchards? These same elements are even now maturing gapes, which, with a little management, under merely natural forces, directed by a human will, may produce wine fit for the wedding feast of a king.

Or, in another line of thought, we may ask, Is it much more difficult to call back a living soul and unite it again to its former body than in any way to produce that soul at first?

These and the like considerations apply to the subject of prayer, and the special favors which it is believed to bring. We men are perpetually turning the forces of nature where we please, and for the most special purposes: can we for a moment imagine that the Almighty has less of this power of control than we?

LETTER OF HON. R. J. WALKER, IN FAVOR OF THE REËLECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

_London, September_ 30, 1864.

[The 'Letter of Hon. R. J. Walker' herewith offered to our readers,
is no ephemeral production, to perish with the passing hour. The
views therein offered, the vital principles discussed, the details
given, the facts handled, have a wide bearing on the future policy
and destiny of our country. Marked by the practical wisdom of the
experienced statesman, while glowing with the fervor of the
patriotic citizen, we have induced him to permit us to include this
Letter in the loyal pages of the CONTINENTAL, where so many of his
important financial essays have already appeared. Our readers will
find it a worthy and logical sequence from the premises heretofore
sustained therein by his able pen.--ED. CON.]

The succession of days and years and centuries is noted in calendars; but it is great events, constituting historical epochs, that mark the progress and destiny of our race. Decisive battles, vast reforms, civil or religious, great scientific discoveries or mechanical inventions, dynastic changes, political revolutions, the union or dismemberment of states, the birth or death of republics, the rise or fall of empires--these are the deep notches in the groove of time, the mighty landmarks in the pathway of humanity. It is the fate of the American Union, involving the liberty of our country and mankind, that is to be decided in our approaching Presidential election. How paltry are all party questions in the presence of an issue so transcendent as this! How dare we mingle old party names or conflicts with such a question, when the life of the Union is trembling in the balance! The maintenance of the Union is the one majestic question, and the _Union party_, in name, and in fact, is the only one that should exist, until this great issue is decided. Then, when the Union is rescued from present and future peril, we may exhume the past, use old party names, or discuss old party issues, but until then to unfold a party banner, and revive old party prejudices, is treason to our country and mankind. It is not Democrats alone, or Republicans alone, as separate parties marshalled against each other, that can save the Union. During this straggle for the Union, we do not hear of Democratic or Republican admirals or generals, divisions or regiments; no, we have only one great Union army, discarding all party names or symbols, and fighting only for and under the banner of the Union. It is then a grave objection to the Chicago McClellan Convention, that, in such a crisis as this, it summoned only a _Democratic_ Convention, and appealed only to the _Democratic_ party to save the Government. As well might we summon only a Democratic army to fight the battles of our country, as conduct such an election as this under any old party name and banner. Thousands of Republicans as well as Democrats, together, under the banner of the Union, fight now the battles of their country. Thousands of Republican as well as Democratic soldiers sleep in their bloody shrouds, or lie wounded on beds of agony; but who dare ask to what party they belonged? It was an unholy ambition, stimulated by party leaders, a thirst for office and emoluments, that rallied under an old party name at Chicago, when the whole people should have been summoned to the rescue.

And who met in council at Chicago? Was it the friends of the Union? No, it was Democrats, as they called themselves, whether unionists or disunionists. Avowed disunionists constituted a large and influential portion of the Convention (profaning the name of Democrats) that met together at Chicago. Who were Vallandigham and Harris and Long and many other of their compeers, who not only met together at Chicago, but some of whom were received with shouts of applause, and resolutions moved by some of them unanimously adopted. It was a meeting of loyal men and disloyal, peace and war men, unionists and disunionists. Every disunionist is a traitor. He is for the overthrow of the Republic, upon the demand of rebels in arms against the Government. Every peace man now on the Chicago McClellan platform is a disunionist and a traitor, because he knows, in his inmost soul, that no peace can be obtained but upon the ultimatum of Jefferson Davis, now officially proclaimed by him through the secretary of state to foreign Governments, namely, the severance of the Union, and the establishment throughout the South of a separate slave-holding empire. Most of these peace men openly avow their disunion doctrines, while others attempt to conceal their treason, under the transparent mask of an "armistice," a "cessation of hostilities," and an _ultimate_ "convention of the States," ignominiously declaring, at the same time, by their platform resolutions at Chicago, that to suppress the rebellion by war _has proved a failure_. What truly loyal man, by voting for their candidates, will indorse at the polls such a platform as this? It is a surrender of our country's honor--it is a capitulation, upon the demand of Southern traitors, whose hands are dripping with the warm life blood of our sons and brothers, and who now boldly and defiantly _pledge themselves_ to foreign Governments, as they always had declared to us, that they will have no peace unless based upon disunion. Did a Democratic Convention ever before receive avowed Disunionists and traitors among its number? Did it ever before trail in the dust the glorious flag of our country? Did it ever agree before, that our banner should be torn down from half the States and territory of the Union, and replaced by a foreign standard, having upon it but one emblazonry--the divinity and perpetuity of Slavery? And shall we treat with the Confederate authorities on this basis? No; while we will gladly treat with States and people _desiring to return to the Union_, with Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet brandishing over our heads the two-edged sword of Slavery and disunion, we will, in the emphatic words of General Jackson, "_negotiate only from the mouths of our cannon_."

General Jackson was, in truth, the father and founder of the Democratic party. Prior to his first nomination in 1823, in the election of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the parties were known as Federal and Republican. In the fall of 1823, I united with a few friends in calling, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the FIRST _Democratic_ meeting, by which General Jackson was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States. I offered the resolutions in his favor adopted by that meeting, calling the Democratic State Convention of Pennsylvania which confirmed that nomination in March, 1824. I attended that Convention, as a delegate from Pittsburg, and wrote the address of the Convention to the Democracy of the State and of the Union on that momentous occasion. I supported General Jackson for the Presidency in 1823 (my first vote), 1824, 1828, and 1832, and uniformly adhered to the Democratic party until after the rebellion of 1861.

During the great nullification and secession question of South Carolina, on the first Monday of January, 1833, at Natchez, Mississippi, I made the opening speech, then published, against nullification and secession, in favor of "_war_," if necessary to maintain the Union--in favor of "_coercion_" to put down rebellion in any State. The Legislature of Mississippi indorsed that speech, and passed resolutions declaring nullification and _secession_ to be _treason_, and, upon THAT ISSUE, I was elected by the Legislature to the Senate of the United States. If Mississippi, under the influence of Jefferson Davis, and other traitor leaders, has since that period abandoned those principles, she cannot expect me to follow her, and thereby surrender opinions which I have uniformly maintained and advocated throughout my life, but more especially from 1833 until the present period. Mississippi (whose prosperity I would restore by bringing her back to the Union) indorsed those opinions when she elected me to the Senate of the United States over an avowed and distinguished secessionist (George Poindexter), after a contest of unexampled violence, personal and political, extending from January, 1833, to January, 1836.

It was on that occasion that General Jackson wrote his celebrated letter in favor of my election and sustaining my political course. It was after the adoption of the secession ordinance by Carolina, that General Jackson sent our war vessels to Charleston to hold and blockade the harbor, and our troops, under the illustrious Scott, to maintain, by force, if necessary, the authority of the Federal Government over the forts commanding the city of Charleston. Let us suppose that the rebels had then shot down our flag, captured our forts, made war upon the Union, and proceeded to dissolve it by force--let us suppose that a committee from any convention had then dared to nominate General Jackson for the Presidency upon such a platform as that adopted at Chicago, proposing an armistice and cessation of hostilities until a National Convention could be assembled, accompanied by the declaration that the rebellion could not be crushed by war, who doubts what would have been the course of that devoted patriot? He would have stamped the disgraceful and treasonable resolutions under his feet, and indignantly scouted the traitors who offered them. And now this McClellan Convention at Chicago professes to represent the Democratic party. As Jefferson was the founder of the old _Republican_ party, Jackson was the father of the _Democratic_ party. Now, with perhaps one exception, is there a _single member_ of that Convention (assuming the name of 'Democratic') that (like myself) supported General Jackson in 1823, 1824, 1828, and 1832, and uniformly adhered to the Democratic party until after the rebellion of 1861?

What right had that Convention to assume the name of Democracy, while trampling upon the advice of the founder of the party, and all its great and vital principles? How dare they offer an 'armistice' and 'the cessation of hostilities' to rebels in arms against their country, especially when the so-called rebel government had again and again declared that they would negotiate upon no terms, except the acknowledgment of their independence, and the definitive dissolution of the Union? But, above all, how dare they record the disgraceful and treasonable falsehood, that the war to suppress the rebellion had failed, and ask the freemen of America to indorse at the polls such a declaration?

And has, indeed, all the blood of patriots shed in defence of the Union in this war, been poured out in vain? Ye patriot soldiers! now in the field, say, are you unable or unwilling to suppress the rebellion? Say it not only in words, but answer the foul accusation by your votes in the approaching Presidential election.

The Chicago McClellan Convention says that the war is a failure, and that therefore there must be an armistice and a cessation of hostilities. Will not your answer at the polls be this: 'It is a foul and treasonable falsehood?'

And is this war for the Union indeed a failure? Let our many and well-fought battles upon the ocean and the land answer the question. Let a country nearly as large as half of Europe, taken from the rebels since the war commenced, respond. Let Shiloh, and Donelson, and Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, and New Orleans, and the Mississippi from its source to its mouth, answer. Why, this wretched calumny had scarcely been uttered by the McClellan Convention, when Sherman, the great commander, and his army had washed out the accusation in the blood of the vanquished, and unfolded our banner at Atlanta, the grand military strategic centre of Georgia, never to be recalled. And while the shouts of the great victory in Georgia were still sounding in our ears, Oppequan responded to the thunders of Atlanta, and the heroic Sheridan, after a decided victory, was driving the rebel army from the valley of Virginia. Was Sherman's campaign from Memphis and Nashville to Chattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta, a failure? Why, that campaign is unsurpassed in history. Was Grant's Potomac advance a failure? What, the hero of the great campaign of the West, terminating with the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison, not know, or do his duty! Was the victory of the Wilderness a failure, or the destruction in successive battles of one third of Lee's army, together with the seizure of the great Weldon Railroad, or the repulse there of the Confederate attack--were these failures? Recollect, Grant was Lieutenant-General, subordinate only to the President and Secretary of War, in planning the whole campaign, and, while too much credit cannot be given to the heroic Sherman and noble Sheridan, and their gallant armies, yet, it must be remembered, that their great victories and strategic military movements are but a part of Grant's plan--_concentrating_ the three armies of the Potomac, the Shenandoah, and the West, so as to seize and hold all the roads connecting with Richmond, and capture the Confederate army and government.

And now as to our navy. Were the gallant deeds of Admiral Porter at Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, the Arkansas, and the Red River, failures? Were the destruction of the forts protecting New Orleans and the capture of that city by the illustrious Farragut failures? Were the capture or destruction by that gallant man, aided by General Granger, of the forts commanding the Bay of Mobile, together with the occupation of its harbor by our fleet--and the destruction there of the Confederate navy--were these failures? Were the capture of the forts and city of Pensacola, of all the Florida forts, and the fortifications commanding Savannah--the defeat of the Merrimac and Tennessee--the destruction of the Alabama--the capture of Port Royal, and of the forts which commanded it--were these failures? No; the war is not a failure. It is a glorious and trancendent success. Already the whole Southern and Southwestern coast is ours. The whole of the Mississippi is ours, with far more than a thousand miles of its course from Columbus to its mouth, and even to a considerable extent up the Mississippi and Missouri, which had been once in the hands of the enemy. Chesapeake Bay is ours, and all its tributaries, from the Potomac to the James River. The whole coast of North and South Carolina, of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, with vast portions of the interior, including many impregnable positions, is ours. Tennessee, one of the seceded States, is now wholly ours. Kentucky is loyal. Missouri is ours, and has abolished Slavery. Maryland is ours, and has, I believe, uprooted Slavery also. Our whole _Territorial_ domain, greater in extent than one half of Europe (and about Slavery in which this contest began), is now wholly ours. Not a rebel flag floats within its limits. When before were such mighty conquests achieved within so short a period? Why, the conquests of Alexander, of Cæsar and Napoleon covered no such extent of territory. And, 'we take no steps backward.' Where our flag now is once unfolded in any part of rebeldom, there it continues to float, and will float forever. What are we to negotiate about? Is it as to giving up the Mississippi and its tributaries, together with New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Tennessee? Is West Virginia, which has been admitted as a new Free State, to be surrendered? Are Fortress Monroe and the Chesapeake to be abandoned? Is the rebel flag to float at Alexandria, and on the heights of Arlington; and are rebel cannon to be planted there, in sight of and to command the _very capital of the Union_? Are we to insult loyal Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware, by negotiating about them? Are we to give back Western to Eastern Virginia? Where is the line of division to be run, and what armies would be strong enough to maintain peace upon the border? What portion of the mighty Territories uniting us with the Pacific are to be surrendered? Are we to turn over to the cruel despotism of their bloody and relentless masters, the millions of loyal people of the South, to whom we have given the most sacred pledge of the protection of the Union? And, last of all, are the two millions of slaves, as Jefferson Davis complains, who have been emancipated by the constitutional war proclamation of President Lincoln, are they to be remanded to Slavery, including the thousands who have so gallantly fought in our defence? And as to Slavery, or what, if any, may be left of it, when the war is over, are we to abandon the unquestionable right to abolish it, as Mr. Lincoln and his friends propose, by a constitutional amendment? Is Jefferson Davis to come back again as Senator from Mississippi? Are the traitors Cobb and Thompson to take their places in the McClellan Cabinet? Is Toombs, of Georgia, (as he boasted) to call the roll of his slaves on the Boston Common? Slavery, we know, was the sole cause of the war. It was Slavery that fired the first gun at Sumter, and demanded to rule or ruin the country. It was in the name of Slavery that the South seceded; and it was to extend and perpetuate Slavery, as a blessed and divine institution, that they avowedly framed the Confederate constitution. In the debates of Congress of 1860-'61, in the proceedings of the Committee of 1833, in the acts of the Peace Congress, in the various secession ordinances, by the very terms of the Confederate constitution, Slavery was the sole cause of this war upon the Government. Slavery was and is our great enemy, and shall we not destroy it? Slavery was the sole cause of the war, and shall it not be eradicated? When the patient calls for a physician, he seeks for the source of the disease, so as not merely to alleviate present pain, but to remove the cause, and prevent relapses or successive attacks. If he deals only with palliatives, to assuage for a brief period the present suffering, when he can remove the cause, and restore the patient to permanent and perfect health, he is but a quack and an impostor.

The party supporting Mr. Lincoln is composed of men of all the old parties. Its candidate for the Presidency is from the North, and belonged to the late Republican party. Its candidate for the Vice Presidency, a brave, loyal, Union-loving man, is from the South, and belonged (like myself) to the old Democratic party. But the Baltimore Convention, in the spirit of true nationality and patriotism, discarded all old party names or issues. It acted only in the name of the Union, and as one great Union party, and asked all patriots, dismissing for the present all old party names or issues, to unite with it for the salvation of the Union.

My first objection, then, to the organization against Mr. Lincoln is, that it is a mere party organization, arrayed under an old party name, and marching under an old party banner. In the midst of a great contest like this, when all old party names and prejudices should be forgotten, and when Democrats and Republicans should be united as brethren in the one grand effort to suppress the rebellion, the Chicago McClellan Convention reopens old party strifes, renews old party issues, and, denouncing Republicans, assumes the name and professes to represent the Democratic party. It was the banner of the Union that was raised by the Convention at Baltimore, and the salvation of the Union, with its rescue from present and future perils, the suppression of the rebellion, with the removal of the cause, constituted the only issues presented by that Convention to the people of the loyal States of all parties.

It was far otherwise at Chicago. It was a mere assemblage of partisans, some for, and some against the Union, in the search of power and emoluments. It was the flag of the Union that was given to the breeze at Baltimore. It was the flag of a party that was unfolded at Chicago. '_For the Union_' was written on the flag of the one--'For the Democratic party' was inscribed on the standard of the other. It was said that the Baltimore Convention has made the abolition of Slavery one of its issues; but, as well might it be objected that it had made the prosecution of the war, or the maintenance of the army or navy, part of its creed. The Emancipation Proclamation of the President had its whole constitutional force as a _war measure_ TO SAVE THE UNION, and, as such, it was adopted by Mr. Lincoln as ex-officio 'commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States.' That it was, as a war measure, perfectly constitutional, I have never doubted, and so declared in an article published at the time in THE CONTINENTAL MAGAZINE. It is the duty of all persons, not aliens, to unite with the President in suppressing a rebellion. Slaves, in the relation which they occupy to the National Government under the Federal Constitution, are '_persons_.' As _persons_, they are thrice named in the Constitution, and by no other name whatever. Especially, under the clause providing for direct taxation, they are _enumerated_ as _persons_, not _valued_ as _property_. The term 'person' is used more frequently in the Constitution than any other, and it is applied expressly to slaves, and to the whole people of the United States, including the President and Vice President, who are designated therein as persons. This very question, whether slaves are persons or property under the Constitution, arose in the great case of _Groves_ vs. _Slaughter_, when, in 1841 (with a single dissenting opinion, that of Judge Baldwin), after the fullest argument on both sides, it was unanimously decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that slaves, in the relation which they hold to the National Government under the Federal Constitution, are _persons only_, and not _property_. Were it otherwise, Massachusetts could not forbid the introduction of slaves from the South for sale there as merchandise; for Massachusetts could not prohibit the introduction of the cotton or any property of the South for sale as merchandise within her limits, for that would have been a prohibition of the _exports from State to State_, which is forbidden by the Federal Constitution. My own elaborate argument before the Court, as one of the counsel in that case, will be found in the appendix to the first edition of the 15th volume of Peters's Reports. As _persons_, the President has a right to call for the aid of all residing in the United States, except aliens, to suppress the rebellion. He has a right to call for the services of the loyal or rebel masters for such a purpose, as well as for the service of their slaves.

It cannot be denied, that the masters, whether rebel or loyal, may be called and even forced by conscription into the army to suppress the rebellion. Would it not then be strange if the master could exempt his slaves from similar services? The only right of the master recognized by the Constitution, is to the 'service or labor' of his slaves. But he has a right equally strong to his own service or labor; yet both must yield to the paramount right of the Government to the services of both or either to suppress the rebellion. There is not a single word in the Federal Constitution which, either by inference or express declaration, exempts slaves, more than any other persons, from the call of the Federal Government to aid in suppressing a rebellion. Such is the construction given, by the South to the so-called Confederate constitution, which is much more stringent than ours in that respect, for it recognizes slaves as property; yet, the rebel authorities, the rebel congress and government, force slaves, even by conscription, to perform military duty--to dig the trenches--to make the earthworks--to erect the barracks and arsenals--to help to make the cannon, small arms, and powder, and vessels of war--to construct the fortifications--to transport the provisions, munitions, and cannon for their armies, together with the tents and military equipage--to raise the food indispensable for the support of their military forces--and, of course, they would, _if they dare_, put arms in their hands to meet us on the battle field. It is clear, then, not as a confiscation of property (which is also constitutional under certain circumstances), but as _persons_, that we have a right to the service of the slaves as well as of their masters to suppress the rebellion. But it is only by emancipation (with compensation for loss of their services by loyal men) that the slaves can be called into our army, and used to suppress the rebellion. A call by the President for the slaves to serve in our armies, to risk their lives and shed their blood for the Union, accompanied by the declaration that they were still slaves, and, upon the termination of the war, such as survived would be restored to their masters, with whom their wives and children must still remain in bondage, would be an atrocious crime, as well as the climax of all absurdities. No; it is only by emancipation that the services of the slaves can or ought to be obtained for the suppression of the rebellion. The Emancipation Proclamation then of the President, with compensation to loyal masters, is most clearly constitutional during the continuance of the war, and as a war measure to suppress the rebellion and save the Union, and such must be the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, to which tribunal the President has properly submitted the final arbitrament of the constitutional question. It is true, when the rebellion is crushed, the President can issue no new emancipation proclamation. But neither can he then recall or modify the one already issued; and if he had the power to recall the proclamation, it would be an act of perfidy unparalleled in the history of the world. The nation would be so utterly disgraced by such bad faith as would be involved in the revocation of the Emancipation Proclamation, as to earn the contempt of all honest and honorable men, and the loss of sympathy of the industrial classes and working men of Europe, whose rulers would then no longer fear to recognize or aid the South. It was the magnificent uprising of the working classes of England in favor of the Union, that alone saved both countries from a bloody and disastrous war.